TEACHING THINKING

1. TEACHING THINKING Macgregor SHS

2. Overview • Why bother to try to teach thinking? • What is a thinking skill? • Which thinking skills will we teach? • Basic Thinking Skills • Higher Order Thinking Skills • Teaching Thinking • Thinking and Literacy

3. Why bother? Thinking skills unlock the keys for learning

4. MacGregor’s Strategic Directions • Since 1995 placed increasing emphasis on the skills/attitudes/processes underlying subject disciplines • Thinking Skills • Literacy and Numeracy • Communication skills • Accessing, processing and presenting information

5. Premises • All subjects require students to think • There are some generic strategies that guide thinking no matter what the subject • There are some specific strategies in all subjects to implement thinking skills • All students will benefit from explicit help in the application of generic strategies and specific tasks requiring structured thought

6. Premises • There is a need for students to explicitly develop the capacity to transfer their ability to think to other subjects,to employment, to leisure and to non subject specific tasks • The identification and explicit practice of generic thinking strategies and specific thinking skills will help students develop their ability to think in a structured way in unfamiliar situations

7. ED QLD 2010 Directions • Framework project • New Basics • Productive Pedagogies • Literate Futures • Information, communication technologies (ICT)

8. Why bother? • Research • Mayer • ROSBA, CCEs and KLAs • 2010 Directions • New Basics • Productive Pedagogies • ICTs • Literate Futures

9. Research • “Several large scale classroom evaluation studies have successfully linked teaching thinking methodologies with learning outcomes both in the short term and in the longer term, although not all are equally successful” McGuiness 1999

10. Research • Can thinking skills be taught? A paper for discussion. Valerie Wilson • http://www.scre.ac.uk/scot-research/thinking/index.html • Scottish Council for Research in Education (May 2000)

11. Research • Towards Developing and Implementing A Thinking Curriculum. Robert J. Swartz (June 2003) • http://www.nctt.net/hongkongaddress.html

12. Mayer

13. FROM ROSBA TO KLAs • ROSBA 1978, Content, Process, Skill and Affective Directives • Viviani Report - CCEs are processed based • KLAs – Outcomes based

14. Common Curriculum Elements • Identification of processes • Definitions of thinking skills • For Example: Classifying is systemically distributing information/data into categories which may be presented to, or created by, the student.

15. KLA’s • Outcomes Based • HPE Select and use information and apply problem solving and decision making strategies to: make informed decisions… evaluate their own actions… • ScienceWorking scientifically • Analysing • Applying ideas and concepts • Assessing and reassessing • Creating analogies • Inferring from data • Interpreting data • Judging credibility • Synthesising • …

16. KLA’s • SOSE • Students evaluate evidence • Students develop criteria – based judgements • Students analyse patterns of spatial variations • Technology • Analyse alternate structures, logic methods of control • Students process, transform, present and transmit information using appropriate forms, … • Students devise detailed production proposals… • Students develop suitable alternatives …

17. New Basics Productive Pedagogies • Higher order thinking • Critical Analysis • Problem based curriculum

18. Valued Performance under the New Basics • Researching and consulting • Analysing, synthesising, relating and selecting • Negotiating and personalizing • Planning, designing and creating • Judging and deciding • Operating and making and acting • Evaluating and revising • Presenting, performing, explaining and communicating

19. Literate Futures 4 Resource Model • Code breaker • Meaning maker • Text User • Text Analyst

20. Conclusion • Underpinning all initiatives is the need for students to be able to think effectively and reflect upon their learning • In 21st Century students must be smart thinkers • Need to explicitly teach students how to think

21. What is a thinking skill?Which will we teach? ?

22. Taxonomy • Foundation Skills- Recall & Perception • Basic Thinking Skills -Analysis, Comparison, Classification, Evaluation, Prediction, Interpretation and Inference. • Synthesis • Higher Order Thinking Skills - Problem Solving, Decision Making, Creative Thinking and Critical Thinking.

23. Which thinking skill have we been predominantly using in this session? ?

24. Analysis • What are we analysing and why? • Activate prior knowledge and find more information • Identify components • Examine components and their relationship to one another • State results

25. Analysis: Components of a Sport Rules Procedures Equipment Pitch Players etc

26. Definition and Label Attributes Relationship to others Knowledge Rules Procedure Superordinate Subordinate Identifying the components of a thinking skill (Beyer) Thinking Skill

27. State Results • What is a thinking skill?

28. Our use of analysis .. • What parts were difficult? • Who controlled the learning? • Have you learned anything about analysis?

29. Metacognition • Talking about the thinking • Transferring to another context

30. What is Higher Order Thinking • Synthesis • Problem Solving • Decision Making • Creative thinking • Critical Thinking

31. Higher Order Thinking • “The students’ success in using the higher order thinking skills of critical and creative thinking, problem solving and decision making is dependent on their mastery of the more basic information processing skills” Beyer

32. Teaching Thinking • “The danger inherent in the teaching of thinking is that the discrete skills remain single and isolated. There is little value in this approach if students are not given the opportunities to practise and transfer the thinking skills into course content.” Beyer

33. Premise • Thinking Skills needed to be taught explicitly • Need for a shift in Pedagogy to create the thinking classroom and the thinking student.

34. Target • Explicit, Active and Transferable E A T

35. Teaching thinking • Teaching for thinking • Teaching of thinking • Teaching about thinking

36. The Thinking Classroom • Explicit teaching of thinking skills • Active use of the thinking skill (e.g. co-operative learning, hands-on exploratory activities, problems to be solved, risk taking, discussion) • Reflection upon the nature of the thinking undertaken • Transference of thinking skills across curriculum areas • Thinking skills applied independently by students

37. Designing an Infusion Lesson • What thinking skill should be the focus? • Plan the lesson • Remember: • Introduction to the content and the thinking process (E) • Thinking actively involving verbal prompts and graphic outlines (A) • Thinking about thinking(E) • Applying thinking to other situations (T) Robert J. Swartz Teaching Thinking: Issues and Approaches

38. Where is the thinking in literacy? • Literacy is the flexible and sustainable mastery of a repertoire of practices with the texts of traditional and new communications technologies via spoken language, print and multimedia. • By ‘flexible’, we mean that students are able to adjust and modify their performance to better meet contextual demands and varying situations. By ‘sustainable’, we emphasise maintenance and achievement over time. ‘Mastery’ involves performance characterised by high achievement. A ‘repertoire’ involves sets of options for complex performance of literacy practices. Literate Futures – Report of the Literacy Review for Queensland State Schools 2000

39. Inference and Interpretation • Inference and Interpretation hard to disentangle. • Both are integral to reading and comprehension • Both are crucial thinking skills in student engagement with the multiple literacies (including numeracy)

40. Rationale • Current QCS test requires complex literacy/numeracy skills • Student understanding and application of the thinking skills Inference and Interpretation are keys to success in the QCS test.

41. Rationale • To understand and apply the thinking skills of Inference and Interpretation students • Need explicit instruction • Need active involvement in the thinking • Need to recognise the transference from one subject area to another • Need to reflect upon their use of these thinking skills

42. Interpretation • State what you want to know the meaning of • Make observations and use prior knowledge • Inference • State what you want to guess/know • Make observations & use prior knowledge • Make guesses • Examine evidence supporting each guess • Choose the best guess • If necessary, make inferences • Sort information / inferences and identify relationships • State meaning

43. The Teaching Learning Cycle • Building the context • Modelling the text • Joint construction of the text • Independent construction of the text • Linking related texts

44. Synthesis and the teaching learning cycle • Synthesis • Literacy Profile • Teaching learning cycle • LOTE • Thinking skills

45. Matching the thinking to the literacy outcome Synthesis model – one size fits all • Understand topic and product • Content:(Develop focus question, search terms, etc) • Genre: • Locate information • Evaluate information • Select and sort information • Create final product

46. Unit Planning • MacGregor SHS - Unit cover sheet • H:\Thinking WEB site\Unit Cover Sheet Feb 2002.rtf • Explanatory notes • T:\Thinking Skills\Lesson Planning Templates\Cover sheet notes 2.doc

47. Lesson Planning • Infusing the Teaching of Thinking: Robert J. Swartz • http://www.nctt.net/lessonsarticles.html#LESSONS • Template adapted from Swartz & Perkins